https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2025/01/los-angeles-fires-unhoused-homelessness-crisis/

The ongoing Los Angeles wildfires have reportedly killed at least 5 people and destroyed thousands of structures, leaving entire neighborhoods in heaps of ashes.

With stately homes burned to the ground, or too damaged to imminently return to, wealthy Angelenos reportedly fled to hotels or other cities: Those who could afford the nightly rate of more than $1,000 stayed at the posh Beverly Hills Hotel, according to a Wednesday night dispatch from the LA Times. Others, the New York Times reported, went to the Sunset Tower Hotel in West Hollywood, where Thursday night’s cheapest rate was listed online at $512. Some drove the 30 miles southeast to the city of Anaheim, where several hotels are offering discounted stays.

But the plight of people experiencing homelessness in the city—reportedly more than 45,000 as of last year, which marked a decrease from 2023—have been comparatively invisible in the wall-to-wall coverage. On Thursday afternoon, I called up John Maceri, the CEO of the People Concern, a social services organization in LA that oversees 700 shelter beds, to learn more about the barriers facing unhoused people trying to flee the wildfires. Their struggles, he said, range from lacking cell phones and Internet access, which can prevent them from learning about evacuation orders and resources, to coping with health issues from all the time spent outside inhaling wildfire smoke. With homelessness reaching record levels in the US last year and natural disasters increasing as a result of climate change, the challenges Maceri outlined seem less like anomalous hardships and more like harbingers of what’s to come as more Americans grapple with the dual housing and climate crises.

This interview has been lightly condensed and edited for clarity.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/pennsylvania-democrats-puerto-rico-voters-tony-hinchcliffe_n_67271b10e4b07ebc5a298924

HuffPost spoke with several Puerto Rican voters outside of a CTown Supermarket on Bethlehem’s south side, across the street from the Puerto Rican Beneficial Society.

Nilsa Vega and Neidel Pacheco of Hellertown, a borough south of Bethlehem, both said they had never voted before, but Hinchcliffe’s remarks were the reason they planned to vote for Harris on Tuesday.

“That hit the spot right there,” Vega said. “They keep saying, ‘Oh, he’s only a comedian.’ It still hurts.”

Pacheco saw Trump’s decision to pose in a garbage truck at a campaign stop in Wisconsin the following day as an additional insult. “If he didn’t have nothing to do with it, what’s he doing in the garbage truck?” Pacheco asked.

https://variety.com/2024/digital/news/jeff-bezos-defends-ending-washington-post-presidential-endorsements-1236193211/

I would also like to be clear that no quid pro quo of any kind is at work here. Neither campaign nor candidate was consulted or informed at any level or in any way about this decision. It was made entirely internally. Dave Limp, the chief executive of one of my companies, Blue Origin, met with former president Donald Trump on the day of our announcement. I sighed when I found out, because I knew it would provide ammunition to those who would like to frame this as anything other than a principled decision. But the fact is, I didn’t know about the meeting beforehand. Even Limp didn’t know about it in advance; the meeting was scheduled quickly that morning. There is no connection between it and our decision on presidential endorsements, and any suggestion otherwise is false.

Doesn’t anyone think it’s weird how @KamalaHarris
rolled out her policy on Puerto Rico the same day @TonyHinchcliffe
told a joke at the Trump rally?

Here’s a timeline of what went down today.

Early this afternoon: Kamala Harris released a video talking about Puerto Rico.

One hour later, comedian Tony Hinchcliffe @TonyHinchcliffe
made the joke about Puerto Rico at the Trump rally.

Shortly after that, Bad Bunny endorsed Kamala Harris.

Did you know that Bad Bunny and Tony Hinchcliffe share the same management label?

Did the managers at @unitedtalent
UTA leak Tony Hinchcliffe’s jokes? And if they did, did they do so because he’s Pro Trump?